A year ago, in response to the need to be more proactive in providing leadership and direction in the Oregon Public Transportation Community, the Agency began a project to modify the Public Transit Division (PTD) organization structure. PTD’s program silo structure provided in-depth expertise on individual programs, but technical assistance and provider coordination was lacking, and each provider had to deal with multiple program managers.

After undertaking this examination, PTD decided to create a geographic alignment of program resources to better support the agency’s multimodal vision, provide a single point of contact for customers, improve coordination and provide proactive public transit advocacy and leadership at a regional level. Initially, the structure will align resources by ODOT Highway Regions, with the exception of Region 2 which contains enough workload to require two staff people.

In response, PTD’s Program Managers are transitioning to Regional Transit Coordinator positions.One of the first steps will be an effort to familiarize with Oregon’s communities, agencies and transportation organizations so PTD understands the local needs, resources and issues.

This structure will provide transit presence on regional teams and help advance multimodal goals and connections. It will provide proactive and locally knowledgeable leadership, planning and problem solving in the transit community.